Why are you excluding the remaining part of Michigan or the northern half of Texas (let alone much of Oklahoma)? For that matter, why would you exclusde the remaining part of Ontario, let alone the rest of western Canada?

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Originally Posted by doublem23

Probably because none of those places are important

They are important to advertisers, which is the point of the matter.

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Originally Posted by SI1020

You obviously define a market differently than I do, and differently than the organizations that track this sort of thing. I guess if you're going to go with media outlets that cover each team I sort of see your point. Like if some station in Enid, Oklahoma is carrying the Rangers or something like that. To me Chicago is the third largest metro area and media market in the US. One of a small number that could actually support 2 MLB teams. I don't think a second team would work in Dallas-Fort Worth right now. As for Toronto, no matter how you slice and dice that one I don't see your point.

I define a franchise's media market the way MLB does, which is by counting all the TV homes that could potentially tune in to a local broadcast and by counting the total number that actually do so. That means when the Tulsa and OKC metro areas tune into Rangers' broadcasts exclusively, or when the Hamilton, Calgary, Winnepeg, Edmonton, and Vancouver metro areas tune into Blue Jays' broadcasts exclusively, MLB (and advertisers) definitely count them. And that's not even counting the millions of people watching from other areas of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, or the rest of Canada west of Ottawa. Total number of people watching is what matters, not the population of a team's base metro area. It is why the Rangers were able to get a much more lucrative TV deal than the Sox.

Simply put: Sox play in a much bigger metro area than Rangers, Blue Jays, and Tigers. The Rangers, Blue Jays, and Tigers play in media markets that are larger or at the very least is just as large (about 98% of the state of Michigan plus northwest Ohio) as the Sox's.

__________________"I have the ultimate respect for White Sox fans. They were as miserable as the Cubs and Red Sox fans ever were but always had the good decency to keep it to themselves. And when they finally won the World Series, they celebrated without annoying every other fan in the country." Jim Caple, ESPN (January 12, 2011)

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